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Any Melodic Phrases of music (not just the first one) may begin someplace other than on a strong downbeat. All the notes before the first strong downbeat of any phrase are the pickup notes to that phrase.
Figure 1.56 Phrases
Any phrase may begin with pickup notes. Each of these four phrases begins with one or two pickup notes. (You may listen to the tune here; can you hear that the pickup notes lead to the
stronger downbeat?)
A piece that is using pickup measures or pickup notes may also sometimes place a double bar (with or without repeat signs) inside a measure, in order to make it clear which phrase and which section of the music the pickup notes belong to. If this happens (which is a bit rare, because it can be confusing to read), there is still a single bar line where it should be, at the end of the measure.
Figure 1.57 At the ends of sections of the music, a measure may be interrupted by a double bar that places the pickup notes in the correct section and assures that
repeats have the correct number of beats. When this happens, the bar line will still appear at the end of the completed measure. This notation can be confusing, though, and in some music the
pickups and repeats are written in a way that avoids these broken-up measures.
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